ST. JAMES THEATRE

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 256, 25 July 1936, Page 13

ST. JAMES THEATRE

“Sutter’s Gold” Such epochal and semi-historical pictures as “Barbary Coast” and “The Rose of the Rancho,” lead naturally to a continuation of California’s complex history in “Sutter’s Gold,” the rich],? dramatic and colourful Universal picture, which opened at St James Jheatre yesterday* No one can visit California without learning that Johan Sutter was the man who first discovered gold in that State, a discovery which led to the world rush of 1849. The picture cries back to Switzerland, where Sutter, a simple, beerdrinking, flute-playing young man, fancying he has killed a man in a tavern brawl, flies the country and makes New York There he hears about California as a land where they get a quart of cider out of every apple, and reap four crops a year. So Johan treks west, but makes Vancouver in the winter. At that time of the year his only means of reaching the land of his dreams is to ship to Hawaii by a sailing vessel and then return to California. So he and his mate, Pete Perkins, find themselves in the Sandwich Islands, and liking it. But Sutter is keen and persistent, and leaves with the sailing vessel for California, with Peto Perkins tailing on. On the voyage Sutter finds that the vessel is a slaver full of islanders in chains below and, the captain proving to be a brute, Sutter heads a mutiny successfully and lands everyone safe on the mainland. There he encounters the Mexicans in command and, on his requesting land for settlement, the officer gives him a territory near Fort Roes, then, curiously enough, occupied by Russians. Without money for goods, seeds and implements, the Sutter settlement looks like a failure, until one day the Russians offer him Fort Roas, adjoining lands, and £lO,OOO on easy terms. Sutter accepts, and New Helvetia flourishes wonderfully, until he becomes involved with the Countess Elizabeth Bartoffski, an Anglo-Russian adventuress, and under her influence is beginning to lose his head. Then tragedy comes in golden shoes. Sutter discovers gold in quantity, but cannot keep the find secret, and the world rushes in and tramples on his rights, seizes his lands, and ruins them for agricultural purposes. Down and out, his Elizabeth deserts him, but he fights the State and the country for justice, but without avail, and dies a broken old man on the steps of the Capitol at Washington—the man who won California for the United States and lost his share of it through its mineral richness. Edward Arnold, an aetor of weight and experience, gives a convincing portrait of the intrepid Swiss. Lee Tracy is richly humorous as Pete Perkins, and Binnie Barnes is very attractive as the countess.